The report in question appeared online on the evening of January 25, producing widespread reaction on cable news programs. As we noted last Thursday, Rachel Maddow summarized it in this way, as did everyone else:

MADDOW (1/25/18): Again, we're absorbing this breaking news that has just come out from the New York Times. The president ordered his White House counsel to fire Robert Mueller. It didn't happen tonight, it happened last June, the month after Robert Mueller was hired as special counsel.

[...]
[T]he drama here is that his White House counsel, who still serves as his White House counsel, Don McGahn, reportedly told the president, "No, I won't make that call. And if you make me, I will quit in protest."

Back in January, that's what everyone thought they'd read in the Times report. Everyone thought they'd read this:

What everyone thought they'd read:Back in June 2017, Trump ordered McGahn to have Mueller fired. But Mueller told Trump that he wouldn't do it—that he would resign instead.

And there was more! At that point, Trump "backed down," the Times report dramatically seemed to say. That's what everyone thought they'd read in the January 26 news report.

Everyone thought they'd read that! Indeed, right to this day, the headline on the Times report says this:

"Trump Ordered Mueller Fired, but Backed Off When White House Counsel Threatened to Quit"

Everyone, including the headline writer, thought that's what the report had said! But uh-oh! As we noted at the time, the Times report had never explicitly said that.

As usual, the writing by Haberman and Schmidt had been rather fuzzy, perhaps suspiciously so. As a result of their fuzzy prose, their report had conveyed a widespread impression which was exciting but wrong.

What was wrong with that Times report, or with what everyone thought the report had said? In fact, it's now widely understood that Don McGahn didn't directly challenge Trump when he received the order to fire Mueller, if he really received such an order.

According to the current account, McGahn told other people in the White House that he would resign before he'd comply with Trump's order. But everybody now agrees that he never said that to Trump himself. (On that basis, it still isn't clear why the January 26 Times report said that Trump had "backed down.")

By now, everyone knows that the January 26 Times report was inaccurate, or had at least conveyed several false impressions. But no one understood that back then, and the drama of its apparent account touched off widespread cable excitement.

Don McGahn had made Trump back down! Cable hosts and viewers loved it!

Last Wednesday night, the Times posted another report which created cable excitement. In this new report, the Times described Trump's reaction when he read the initial news report in January, or when he heard it described.

Last week's underwhelming report appeared on page A20 in Thursday's hard-copy Times. According to last week's report, what did Trump do when he read the initial report in January?

HABERMAN AND SCHMIDT (3/8/18, pghs 1 and 2): The special counsel in the Russia investigation has learned of two conversations in recent months in which President Trump asked key witnesses about matters they discussed with investigators, according to three people familiar with the encounters.

In one episode, the president told an aide that the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, should issue a statement denying a New York Times article in January. The article said Mr. McGahn told investigators that the president once asked him to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. McGahn never released a statement and later had to remind the president that he had indeed asked Mr. McGahn to see that Mr. Mueller was dismissed, the people said.

There you see the initial account of what Trump did when he read the report in January. You'll note that Haberman and Schmidt have produced a slightly bowdlerized version of their original effort.

In this account of their January report, they've omitted the fact that their fuzzy writing made everyone think that Don McGahn had dramatically refused Trump's order right to his face—and that Trump had then "backed down." Back in January, Trump would have known that account was wrong. Is that why the fiery commander in chief told McGahn to deny the accuracy of the Times report?

Did Trump tell McGahn to deny the report because it seemed to be wrong? Was he reacting to an (apparent) part of the report which he knew to be inaccurate?

We have no way to answer that question—and readers had to wait until paragraph 12 for a fuller account of what the chief exec reportedly did after he read the January report. Here's the fuller account of what went down, as seen in last Thursday's Times:

HABERMAN AND SCHMIDT (3/8/18, pghs 12-17): Mr. Trump’s interactions with Mr. McGahn unfolded in the days after the Jan. 25 Times article, which said that Mr. McGahn threatened to quit last June after the president asked him to fire the special counsel. After the article was published, the White House staff secretary, Rob Porter, told Mr. McGahn that the president wanted him to release a statement saying that the story was not true, the people said.

[...]

Mr. McGahn did not publicly deny the article, and the president later confronted him in the Oval Office in front of the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, according to the people.

The president said he had never ordered Mr. McGahn to fire the special counsel. Mr. McGahn replied that the president was wrong and that he had in fact asked Mr. McGahn in June to call the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, to tell him that the special counsel had a series of conflicts that disqualified him for overseeing the investigation and that he had to be dismissed. The president told Mr. McGahn that he did not remember the discussion that way.
Mr. Trump moved on, pointing out that Mr. McGahn had never told him that he was going to resign over the order to fire the special counsel. Mr. McGahn acknowledged that that was true but said that he had told senior White House officials at the time that he was going to quit.

It is not clear how the confrontation was resolved. Mr. McGahn has stayed on as White House counsel, one of the few senior administration officials who has been with the president since the campaign.

There you see the Times account of what happened in January. Last Wednesday night, this new report appeared online, producing substantial cable excitement.

Trump has been talking to witnesses, cable hosts said, showcasing real excitement. The claim that Trump has perhaps been breaking the rules in this way fueled the evening's excitement.

Should Donald J. Trump be speaking to people who have testified to Mueller? The Times report cited two examples, one of which—an interaction with Reince Priebus—was so spectacularly trivial as to be completely risible, even for a report in the Times.

The other example was this interaction with McGahn. So how about it? Should Trump have spoken to Don McGahn after reading the January report?

On cable, everyone screeched and wailed about the troubling fact that Trump had spoken to McGahn. Here's what they didn't tell you:

Let's return to January. When Trump read the Times report, he would have known that part of what it seemed to say was just plain untrue.

The Times report seemed to say that McGahn had refused his order to his face, and that he had then "backed down." Trump would have known that wasn't true. Would it really be wrong for him to ask McGahn to correct the record?

We're not sure why that would be wrong. Is that what actually happened?

Frankly, there's no way to know. The Times report is sourced to "three people." (No parrots or talking mules were interviewed for the report.) We're relying on what those unnamed people allegedly said about the interaction with McGahn. There's no way to fact-check their statements.

At any rate, based on what Haberman and Schmidt reported, three unnamed people say this is what occurred:

1) Trump told McGahn he gave no such order. McGahn told Trump he was wrong about that. They agreed to disagree. Trump didn't start World War III.

2) Trump told McGahn that he never defied any such order to his face. McGahn said Trump was right about that, but that he'd made resignation threats to others.

According to Haberman and Schmidt, that's what "three people" have told the Times. It's possible that this account is right. It's possible that it's wrong.

According to the Times report, Trump seems to have told McGahn that he doesn't think he ordered him to fire Mueller. We'll guess that Trump is wrong about that, but there's no obvious way to be sure.

Meanwhile, it seems that Trump was plainly right about the second point. In fact, Don McGahn didn't threaten to resign when Trump told him to fire Mueller, assuming Trump actually did that.

You'll note that, in their new report, Haberman and Schmidt don't explain how that issue arose in the first place—namely, because they wrote a fuzzy, possibly slippery report in January, a fuzzy report which gave everyone a misleading, bogus impression.

Did Trump order McGahn to have Mueller fired? We'll guess he probably did.

Did the Times write a fuzzy front-page report in January from which everyone drew a false impression? We don't have to guess about that! On that point, we can offer you a flat yes!

Apparently, Trump understood the January report the same way Maddow did. Thanks to some fuzzy prose from the Times, they both misunderstood what the Times had said—but by the eternal rules of the game, you aren't allowed to hear that.

McGahn wants to get favorable stories out. The Times wants to post "breaking news."

Cable hosts want nightly thrills. These are the ways our discourse works as we slowly go down.

Also this weird construction: Back in January, Haberman and Schmidt tossed off another misleading construction. Their second paragraph started like this:

HABERMAN AND SCHMIDT (1/26/18): The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel.

In fact, this is the only time Trump is known to have tried to fire Mueller. When the reporters said "first" instead of "only," they triggered reactions like this:

MADDOW (1/25/18): Michael, one last question for you. I'm struck by the wording in the second paragraph in your piece. It says this West Wing confrontation marks the "first" time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel.

Does that— Are you deliberately implying there might be other times?

SCHMIDT: No, it's just the first time.

MADDOW: OK.

SCHMIDT: As journalists in this story, especially when we learn about something for the first time, we like to note it and say, you know, "this is the first time" about this or whatever. This is the first time we know about that. If the president was willing to do that in June, was he willing to do it other times? I don't know.

But this was the first time for that and, you know, as we go along, we try to note whether this is the second or third or fourth or whatever, but for this one, this was the first.

That mumble-mouthed answer left Maddow dejected. That said, such jumbled constructions are official New York Times style. The Times has been offering front-page prose like that all the way back to the Watergate days, when their jumbled front-page reporting helped create an era of pseudo-scandal.

The Times just isn't especially sharp. It's hard for many people to grasp this basic fact of failing American life.

Hello my name is Sarah Douglas, i am here to give testimony on how this powerful spell caster called Dr. Ugo helped me to fix my relationship. i was heartbroken when my fiancee told me he is no longer interested in marrying me because another lady has used a black magic on him. I cried and sobbed every day, until it got so bad that I reached out to the Internet for help, that was when i read a review about the great work of Dr. Ugo . I then contacted him for help to get my love and my life back, he helped me cast a powerful love spell and to my greatest surprise after 24 hours of doing the love spell my Fiancee came back on his knees begging me to forgive him. We are now happily married and all thanks goes to Dr. Ugo Wonders for helping me save my relationship. you can contact Dr. Ugo through his email address generalspelltemple@gmail.com or call his direct mobile number on +13863369876 website: https://generalspelltempleblog.wordpress.com/

Hello my name is Sarah Douglas, i am here to give testimony on how this powerful spell caster called Dr. Ugo helped me to fix my relationship. i was heartbroken when my fiancee told me he is no longer interested in marrying me because another lady has used a black magic on him. I cried and sobbed every day, until it got so bad that I reached out to the Internet for help, that was when i read a review about the great work of Dr. Ugo . I then contacted him for help to get my love and my life back, he helped me cast a powerful love spell and to my greatest surprise after 24 hours of doing the love spell my Fiancee came back on his knees begging me to forgive him. We are now happily married and all thanks goes to Dr. Ugo Wonders for helping me save my relationship. you can contact Dr. Ugo through his email address generalspelltemple@gmail.com or call his direct mobile number on +13863369876 website: https://generalspelltempleblog.wordpress.com/

"As we noted at the time, the Times report had never explicitly said that. "

Thus, anyone who thought it said that was misreading the article. Including Trump. And that is the reporters' fault, supposedly.

"According to the Times report, Trump seems to have told McGahn that he doesn't think he ordered him to fire Mueller. We'll guess that Trump is wrong about that"

This is the crux of the matter, not whether McGahn confronted Trump about it. Which the original story never claimed. What makes Somerby guess this? There must be something persuasive in the news reports, or in things Trump himself has said, that lead him to this conclusion.

"there's no obvious way to be sure" Somerby keeps saying. What a crock. That's what the Mueller investigation is all about. It's called testifying under oath. Our legal system. The one that determines if someone "breaks the rules."

THE TRUE SOLUTION TO MARRIAGE , CHEATING , DIVORCE , AND RELATIONSHIP ISSUES... I suggest you read this,My name is Jessica Jack, from united States, i'm so excited my broken Marriage has been restored & my husband is back after he left me and our 2 kids for another woman. After 5 years of marriage, me and my husband has been into one quarrel or the other until he finally left me and the kids for another woman. thought they would never see their father again. i tried to be strong just for the kids but i could not control the pains that torments my heart, my heart was filled with sorrows and pains because i was really in love with my husband. Every day and night i think of him and always wish he would come back to me, I was really upset and i needed help, so i searched for help online and I came across a website that suggested that Dr Purity can help get ex back fast. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he told me what to do and i did it then he did a (Love spell) for me. 2 days later, my husband really called me and told me that he miss me and the kids so much, So Amazing!! So that was how he came back that same day,with lots of love and joy,and he apologized for his mistake,and for the pain he caused me and the kids. Then from that day,our Marriage was now stronger than how it were before,All thanks to Dr Purity. he is so powerful and i decided to share my story on the internet that Dr Purity is a real and powerful spell caster who i will always pray to live long to help his children in the time of trouble, if you are here and you need your Ex back or your husband moved to another woman, do not cry anymore, contact this powerful spell caster now. Here’s his contact: Email him puritylovespell@gmail.com you can also call or whats app him (+2348070980389) thanks for reading...

My Dear friends online, My name is sander And i live in USA, New York, I have to give this miraculous testimony, which is so unbelievable until now. I had a problem with my Ex husband 2 years ago, which lead to our break up. I was not myself again, i felt so empty inside me, my love and financial situation became worst, until a close friend of mine told me about a spell caster who helped her in the same problem too his name is Dr bello, I email the spell caster and i told him my problem and i did what he asked of me, to cut the long story short. Before i knew what was happen, less than two days my husband gave me a call and told me that he was coming back to me i was so happy to have him back to me. The most interesting part of the story is that am pregnant. Thanks to Dr bello for saving my marriage and for also saving others own too. Continue your good work, If you are interested to contact the great spell caster email address: bellospelltemple@gmail.com or contact him on whatsApp +2348147271779.

Henderson Elizabeth Dr joy is a trust worthy spell caster and he will be of great help to you. I never believed in spell casting but After 4 years of marriage my husband left me because I lost my womb, and i was unable to give birth to children. I felt like my life has come to an end, and i almost committed suicide, i was emotionally down for a very long time, but thanks to this spell caster called Dr joy whom i met online after my friend Becky Ross told me how he also helped her to bring back her husband in less than 2 days. I believed her and decided to give Dr joy a try and i contacted him on his email joylovespell@gmail.com. and explained my problems to him. He laughed and told me that In less than 2 days, my Husband will come back to me again, and that he will restore my womb and i will give birth to children. At first i thought it was a joke but i took courage and believed as Dr joy has said and it did happen just as this Great spell caster said, My husband called me and was crying, begging for forgiveness. I forgive him and today i am so glad that all worries and problems has gone away, and we are even happier than before, another good news is that i am pregnant now, and very soon we will have our baby. Dr joy is really a gifted and a powerful spiritual man and i will not stop publishing him because he is a wonderful man. I advice you all If you have a problem and you are looking for a real and genuine spell caster to solve all your problems just Contact Dr joy on his email on joylovespell@gmail.com. because he will always help you to solve all problems. Once again thank you Dr joy. Thank you, thank you.you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2347088404185.

I am Razieh from Republic of Iran, i hear how people are talking about The powerful spell caster called DR Mojo in regard on how he bring back ex lover, Winning lottery,cure E.D ,getting pregnant and getting married to their dream lover and i also contact him to help me cast a spell in regard of my ex lover whom i love so much that left me 1yrs ago, but today my ex is back to me and we are happily married with good paid job and i am so much happy for the help i found in you DR Mojo. I and my family are very much happy and we are living large now, i am grateful and appreciate your good work . Thank you and may you live long to help people in problems. if you are going through any problem at all he will help you contact him on his email:solutioncentre1960@gmail.com ,call or add him on watsapp +27797427509

I want to use this means to let the world know that all hope is not lost Getting pregnant after having tubes clamped and burned, I know IVF and Reversal could help but it way too cost, i couldn't afford it either and i so desire to add another baby to my family been trying for 5 years, not until i came across Dr.AGBAZARA TEMPLE, who cast a pregnancy/Fertility spell for me and i got pregnant.l hope that women out there who are going through the same fears and worries l went through in GETTING PREGNANT , will find your contact and be happy like me as i drop it here on this site, and solution will come to them as they contact you. Thank you and God bless you to reach him email via: ( agbazara@gmail.com ) or Call/WhatsApp +2348104102662

Call Dr.Dave For Urgent Love Spell +55 (11) 97732-4658I'm Olivia Megan from United State,I'm happy that my husband is back into my life after 2 years of divorce, Dr.Davi brought my husband back today and i am so excited. I got Dr.Davi email online when a lady was testifying about the strong spell caster who restored her marriage then I said to myself since he helped her, he can also help me,so i emailed him and told him the pain that I was going through,and he told me what to do and i did it,Then he did an urgent Love spell for me. 48 hours later, my husband came back home and with lots of love and joy,and he apologized for his mistake,and for the pain he caused me. Then from that day,our marriage was now stronger than how it were before, All thanks to Dr.Davi. Our family is complete again. If you are going through Divorce/Broke-up since Dr.Davi helped me, he can also help you..email him at: Spelltemple@fastmail.com,Thank you Dr Davi for saving my broken Marriage and brought my husband back to me.Email him: Spelltemple@fastmail.com Call him now +55 (11) 97732-4658